From #1 New York Times bestselling author Lisa See, “one of those special writers capable of delivering both poetry and plot” (The New York Times Book Review), a moving novel about tradition, tea farming, and the bonds between mothers and daughters.In their remote mountain village, Li-yan and her family align their lives around the seasons
From #1 New York Times bestselling author Lisa See, “one of those special writers capable of delivering both poetry and plot” (The New York Times Book Review), a moving novel about tradition, tea farming, and the bonds between mothers and daughters.
In their remote mountain village, Li-yan and her family align their lives around the seasons and the farming of tea. For the Akha people, ensconced in ritual and routine, life goes on as it has for generations—until a stranger appears at the village gate in a jeep, the first automobile any of the villagers has ever seen.
The stranger’s arrival marks the first entrance of the modern world in the lives of the Akha people. Slowly, Li-yan, one of the few educated girls on her mountain, begins to reject the customs that shaped her early life. When she has a baby out of wedlock—conceived with a man her parents consider a poor choice—she rejects the tradition that would compel her to give the child over to be killed, and instead leaves her, wrapped in a blanket with a tea cake tucked in its folds, near an orphanage in a nearby city.
As Li-yan comes into herself, leaving her insular village for an education, a business, and city life, her daughter, Haley, is raised in California by loving adoptive parents. Despite her privileged childhood, Haley wonders about her origins. Across the ocean Li-yan longs for her lost daughter. Over the course of years, each searches for meaning in the study of Pu’er, the tea that has shaped their family’s destiny for centuries.
A powerful story about circumstances, culture, and distance, The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane paints an unforgettable portrait of a little known region and its people and celebrates the bond of family.
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The Best Lisa See Book Yet The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane follows the life of Li-yan, a member of the Akha hill tribe whose way of life is still tied to the land. Growing up picking tea leaves each season with her family and living without electricity or running water in a hut made on bamboo stilts, Li-yanâs life is a far cry from the modern world of the late 1980âs. Set to follow in her motherâs path as a midwife, Li-yan struggles to accept her path and works hard in school hoping to be the first in her village to…
Lisa See is an Amazing story teller Lisa See is an Amazing story teller. This book is well researched and extremely enjoyable. I have a daughter adopted from the Kunming Welfare Institute, Yunnan Province, China. She was born in October 1994 and we adopted her in May of 1995 about the same time and setting as this book. Our daughter is thought to be of one of the minority groups so I found the book extremely interesting.The book shed light on the lives of the Akha people, a minority group living in Yunnan Province…
Definitely Read! This is See’s best book yet. Brilliantly researched. How she manages to make a book basicallyabout ten and the people who grow it interesting is a miracle. The characters are alive, real andworth investing in. I really liked this book a lot